Medical devices, including cardiac stimulus devices such as implantable cardiac pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), are surgically implanted within a patient. Cardiac stimulus devices have one or more electrical leads with one or more electrodes that conduct signals to and receive signals from the patient's heart. These lead(s) and their electrode(s) are placed in or around the heart. Each of the electrodes may be configured either to produce or pace a cardiac event, or to detect or sense an intrinsic cardiac event. Some medical devices record or otherwise collect these cardiac events.
A programming device or programmer communicates with the medical device through a communication link. The collected data regarding the paced and sensed cardiac events is transferred from the medical device to the programmer through the communication link. One example of a communication link is a telemetry link that provides means for commands and data to be non-invasively transmitted and received between the programmer and the device.
Medical devices collect more cardiac events at more cardiac sites as they provide more leads, electrodes per lead, and programming parameters for the leads. Thus, there is a greater need to present these cardiac events in a meaningful manner for comparison. For example, in the case of heart failure resynchronization, there is a need to determine how often a patient needs therapy and how often the patient is receiving therapy. Heart failure therapy relies on providing programmed paced cardiac events in a chamber or combination of chambers, and failure to deliver these programmed paces is viewed as therapy failure. It is important to provide the clinician with diagnostics that reveal the loss of therapy as well as the reason for the loss of therapy. Based on this information, the clinician attempts to optimize the operation of the medical device for a particular patient by adjusting programmable parameters in the medical device.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide a system and method for displaying cardiac events in a meaningful manner.